


Call Me Whatever You Like

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward George, Because I Like the Tough General When He's Awkward, Cute Embarassment, Humor, Misunderstandings, Suave Lafayette, catcalling, cute flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 05:25:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8044147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: Lafayette is out for a morning run when he runs into a rather flustered (and cute) neighbor.





	Call Me Whatever You Like

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skarlatha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/gifts).



> Skari, YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS FOR. Je t'aime! Always!
> 
> And thanks to the lovely hamiltrashed for betaing! You are my muse!

Lafayette steps out of his apartment and sets the iPod to his _Crushin’ the Pavement_ playlist. Today is the first day of phase three of his training and he’s stretched and ready to go. This 5k is going to be his. But not before he extends his training out into a mile and half on the ever reaching journey to the full run. Which means that today, he’s going to explore a little bit more of the neighborhood than he’s had the chance to since he moved in. Granted, he should have taken the time to get out a little more ever since his U-Haul parked on the street four months ago, but between unpacking, trying to keep up with Mulligan and Laurens in drinking, and joining the town’s tentative no-parking-meters-revolution (it’s about freedom dammit), Lafayette hasn’t really prioritized “meeting the neighbors.”

So he’ll take a little bit of time this morning to visit the north side of the residential area, take the scenic route on his run. He jumps up and down a little to get his blood pumping and turns up the volume on the iPod. He gives his head a shake for confidence and gets into prime running position and takes off at a light jog working its way into a steady run.

For the first half a mile, things go ordinary and as planned. After all, this is the route he’s gotten himself used to. There’s the old lady letting her papillons out right in time for them to try and nibble on his heels. There’s the jolly guy getting in his car for work. There’s the siblings across the street fighting over who gets the basketball this morning. And there’s the lovely couple on the corner gazing out the window at in the morning light, looking so disgustingly happy it’s almost creepy. All in all, though, it’s a nice day in a quiet little friendly town that’s just about perfect except for the outrageous parking fees. And Lafayette is content.

He pauses on the corner as a car goes past and then jogs through the crosswalk, heads north this time instead of his usual west. There are rows upon rows of houses he’s never seen--a tall, brick building with moss, a quaint little blue cottage type, one with a flat roof, one with too high of a roof, one with a second floor deck, one with two garages. The wind picks up nicely and compliments the sun as it begins to rise in the sky. He gets a wave from a older man mowing his grass, a nod from a girl getting her mail. Everyone is so nice and so respectful and it just makes Lafayette--

“ _COM’ HERE, SWEET LIPS_!” a man’s voice yells at him and Lafayette stumbles. He turns sharply and rips his earbuds out of his ears--the music hasn’t really helped muffle the man’s outrageous catcall it seems, so it doesn’t matter now--as he pauses on the edge of the man’s property, right up next to the corner of his yard fence.

The man keeps looking at him with a smile on his face before something comes over him and his eyes go comically wide and he holds his hands out in front of him. “No, no, no, no, no!” he says and Lafayette, offended and concerned, puts his hands on his hips and finishes his tight turn. “Oh, shit,” the guy continues. “No, no, no, no, no! I didn’t mean--oh shit. I wasn’t calling _you_.”

Lafayette turns his head from side to side, sees no one else in the vicinity, and looks back with an eyebrow raise.

“Oh, god,” the man squeaks. “No, it’s my...my...my dog! I have a dog! I swear I have a dog!”

Lafayette gives him an up-and-down. He’s tall, muscular, and his dark skin is radiant in the morning sun. He’s wearing a bathrobe tucked up around his chest--periwinkle blue--and squeaky little slippers that look like they at one time might have been ducks. In any other situation, Lafayette might call him something like _cute_ or _interesting_ , but here and right now he just arches his eyebrow higher and dips his head in the question.

“My dog,” the man explains. “I was calling my dog. I let her out and now she got out of the yard and I was calling her to come back.”

“Your dog’s name is Sweet Lips,” Lafayette deadpans.

“YES!” the man answers. “Yes, I have a dog named Sweet Lips. I swear to God! I wasn’t hitting on you, I swear! I was in _no way_ calling your lips sweet.” Lafayette tilts his head back and to the side as his eyebrows go higher. “No, no, no! Not that you don’t have sweet lips! I’m sure your lips are really good. They’re probably like sugar. They look like they’re really delicate and fuck! Look, I promise I’m not normally this creepy, okay? I’m a nice guy. I just have a…” He trails off with a swallow. “A dog,” he squeaks. “A dog named Sweet Lips.”

Lafayette adjusts his stance by the fence and keeps his expression as still as possible. “Uh huh,” he says.

“I promise?” the guy tries. “I really wasn’t catcalling you. Not that you shouldn’t be catcalled. I’m sure you get catcalls all the time because you’re really hot and--” The guy winces. “--but _I_ wasn’t catcalling you. I’m not creepy. I’m not, like, a stalker, or anything. I swear. I have a dog.”

Lafayette makes a show of looking around them again, seeing no dog or signs of life other than the man in his light blue bathrobe and Lafayette in his short shorts that he really should have thought about wearing if he didn’t want the attention. “Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh,” Lafayette drawls.

“Oh, fuck,” the man squeaks, but luckily for him, there’s a little jingle and a bark as a hound crests the corner of the house and wags its tail happily at its owner. “HERE!” the man calls and shoots for the dog. “Look at the tag!”

Lafayette gives a little sigh as he fights back a growing smile at the man’s awkwardness. But he manages to keep his expression clean as he walks through the fence and then squats with the dog’s owner by the hound. He takes the tag and looks at it, sees the number engraved and the owner’s name below-- _George Washington_ \--with the dog’s name up top in big, block letters.

“This says Vulcan,” Lafayette informs him.

“What?” the man--George says--and grabs the tag, looking at it. “Oh, motherfucker! No, I have _two_ dogs.” Lafayette resists laughing. “Dammit!” George stands up and straightens his bathrobe before going to the gate and calling again, “SWEET LIPS! COME HERE, YOU DANG DOG!” Lafayette grins behind his back and strokes Vulcan’s fur. The hound licks at face and wags his tail incessantly hard. “Oooooohhhh,” George says and rubs his hand on his jawline while the other rests on his hip. “What can I do to prove to you I’m not just the neighborhood’s creepy old man?”

Lafayette again suppresses a chuckle and rises, giving Vulcan a loving thump on the side. He lifts his fingers to his mouth and whistles loud and shrill. Vulcan’s ears go up at the sound. Washington starts and looks over at him. And a couple houses away, there's a bark, followed soon by the arrival of another hound that looks almost identical to Vulcan, finding her way back into the yard. “Oh thank god,” Washington murmurs and closes the door right when she’s inside.

Lafayette bends down and gives a little click of his tongue and the dog comes over and sniffs him before deciding she likes him, too. Washington looks at him, bashful. “See? Dogs.”

“Did anyone ever tell you,” Lafayette asks, “that you are terrible at naming things?”

Washington bites his lip and gives him shy eyes. “I’m really sorry about _all_ of this. You can go on your run and I will go back into my house and hide under my covers until the embarrassment eventually washes away.”

Lafayette does chuckle this time, letting the sound go warm from his throat. “Lafayette,” he says.

“Lafay…?”

“It’s my name. Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.” Washington blinks rapidly at him. “Lafayette. I’m French.”

“Oh. Um, welcome to America?”

Lafayette grins wide and free and straightens from petting the dogs. He crosses his arms over his chest. “So, Mr. George Washington in a bathrobe, I think after this whole incident you owe me a dinner. Tonight, eight o’clock. I’ll be standing in front of your house.”

“Oh! Um, yes. Sure. That’s--wait, how did you know my name?”

Lafayette laughs. “It’s on the dog tag.”

“Oh,” Washington says with a little worry at his lip again. “Dinner. Sure. I’ll make it up to you.”

Lafayette walks past him and opens the gate, slips out onto the sidewalk again. He closes it and lets his body drift close to where George is standing just on the other side. “You don’t have to make anything up to me,” Lafayette says. He grins and drops into a whisper. “That was me hitting on you.” He gives George a little wink and then turns away flirtatiously, putting his earbuds back up into his ears, but not before he hears the little whimper of delight pass through George’s lips.


End file.
